


The Lies We Live In

by Open_Sky



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, after episode whining, dany's pov, my beans are hurting, reveal angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 20:44:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Open_Sky/pseuds/Open_Sky
Summary: It was the first time Dany had seen the crypts. The walls, even with torches lit all along them, seemed cold and dark, strange. The drop of temperature made her shudder, tainting her heart with unease and dread.The reveal from Dany's point of view. Angsty.





	The Lies We Live In

**Author's Note:**

> A big, big thanks to Aliciutza, who was kind enough to correct my mistakes :) I don't even know what I'd do without you, Auntie <3

 

 

_Sometimes, strength is terrible._

She still remembered as Randyll Tarly’s eyes bored into hers, his every pore full with defiance and cold disdain. He might as well have spat on her face, with the way he refused to bend, _loyal_ to Cersei all the way to the end. Her eyebrows pulled together in a troubled frown. What did that man even know about loyalty when he betrayed his liege in favour of the woman who murdered Margaery and Loras Tyrell?

He was a traitor whom she gave a second chance, and he was fool enough to waste it, along with his son. They needn’t die but their lives were in their own hands, for she couldn’t go back on her word, nor would she. Regarding or not her personal feelings for losing Olenna, executing traitors is a queen’s justice, and even so she let almost every survivor live.

Except those two.

There are times a ruler _has_ to be ruthless. She would do it again if needed, because that was the only thing she could do with them. Tyrion might see otherwise but she knew better: if she hadn’t shown the men what happens with the traitors who are not willing to subjugate themselves, even more people would decide to fight, even more people would die.

_Surely, Jon understands that too,_ she thought uncertainly. Samwell must have told him about the Tarlys. _Maybe Jon judged her for killing the family of his best friend._ But... If it was about that, he would have confronted her. He would have confronted her and she would have explained that she couldn’t have spared the lives of the ones who not only sided with the Lannisters against the Tyrells but also refused to kneel.

No, she felt it in her bones, the problem was something else.

She felt like every time he turned away from her, a piece of her heart had been ripped out. _Why? Why was he so distant?_ Something had happened, she knew it, she had seen it when she looked at his face. Something had happened and she had no idea what, and this _something_ left a really bitter and terrible taste in her mouth, a dreadful anticipation.

Jon was retreating into himself, and this was worse than the time they hadn’t known each other, because at that time at least he had the decency to look at her.

Her fingers lifted unconsciously to touch her lips, the feeling of their sweet kiss at the waterfall still vivid in her memory. She wished he would talk to her. Not just those formal _‘Your Grace’_ s, but real talk. Where their eyes meet and they can share those small, happy smiles she had never known could sneak upon her face, or where she can press her nose into his neck and breathe in his warm scent of pine and ash. Where he kisses the top of her head between the words. Where he calls her _Dany_.

_Where was he? Why did he abandon her without a word? If he was hurting, why didn't he tell her?_ His pain was hers too and the fact that he had closed up about it made it so much worse. Wetness was gathering in her eyes but she couldn’t let the tears fall, because the fact that her heart has probably cracked, if not broken because of his behaviour, didn't make her any less a queen.

_Just when I finally admitted that I loved him,_ a traitorous voice in her head reminded her, and she took a deep breath to mute the unwelcome thought.

No, this farce couldn’t and wouldn’t continue. Whatever Jon Snow’s mysterious reason was to betray her feelings, they were at war, which meant they needed a united front, inside the walls just as much outside them. She wished to soothe his soul, to show her love, but even if he rejected all that, leaving her broken in the process, they were still allies, not strangers. They needed to show that.

With a determined sigh, she grabbed the door handle and left the solace of her chambers.

 

Outside the air was frigid, making her feel like a thousand needles were prickling her cheeks. Shadows hurried through the dancing torchlight cast on the snow, barely more indistinguishable than the soldiers, blacksmiths and servants they belonged to.

It was hard to pretend that she was collected as she walked across the courtyard, but ironically, the early, frightening dark that engulfed the North proved to be useful enough now to hide the poorly concealed desperation on her face – however she willed it to disappear, the feeling still painfully there. It wouldn’t do any good if the people had seen her as a fearful maid looking lost and heartbroken.

_Damn you, Jon Snow, for making me so weak._

Men and women were rushing by, some probably even running _from_ her, yet she barely registered it. Everything seemed foreign, frozen and hostile, and she felt as though the last remains of the heat she associated with _home_ were slipping away from her. However brief it was, Jon made her feel home and it made this distance between them all the more painful. _Would she survive it if he left?_ Vulnerability was engulfing her. She needed to stop it.

It was the queen her people needed, not the southern girl. She had to be strong for them too; she had to lead the way. Everything she did, she did for the good of the people, for this was the path she chose, this was why she fought ever since her children were born.

 

Daenerys was about to ask after Jon when something poked at her hand; big, red eyes finding hers as she spun around. A startled sound left her lips, although it was not long before they turned up in a small smile with her tentative fingers finding their way into the wolf’s fur. They hadn’t met before, but she heard about him much, lying tangled in the sheets with her lover. A bittersweet meeting it was, to stand this close to Ghost when his human friend had never seemed so distant.

“Where is he?” she whispered, and the direwolf turned around to lead her, padding away silently like his namesake.

 

It was the first time Dany had seen the crypts. The walls, even with torches lit all along them, seemed cold and dark, strange. The drop of temperature made her shudder, tainting her heart with unease and dread.

Yet ridiculously, the moment she saw him, it was like everything disappeared but him and her and the furious beating of her heart in her chest. The small smile he gave her was enough to have her forget the hurt he caused with his recent distance, filling her with warmth and love instead, and a new ache caused by the terrible suffering in the depth of his eyes.

She approached him in silence, then held his arm, hoping that the touch would soothe his pain. He didn't move away, which made her bold enough to reach for his other hand with her right.

It felt like a thousand years since she had felt this peaceful. _With him._

“Who is that?”After a few beats of silence, she asked.

“Lyanna Stark,” the name sounded low and gruff on his tongue, yet so full of emotion.

  _Oh._

 Her heart sank, and she felt the urge to bury her face in his furs, to hide from the cruel truth and the burning disappointment. Instead, she tried to look at his profile only to shift her gaze away, the shame too heavy to keep her eyes at him. “My brother Rhaegar... everyone told me he was decent and kind. He liked to sing. Gave money to poor children.” She stared at the statue helplessly. “And he raped her.”

 “He didn't.” His husky response came sooner than she expected; a denial that had her eyes widen. Jon turned towards her, then, and she felt like he was about to _confess_ something. It left her confused.

_What is this about? What does he mean by ‘he didn't’?_

A few beats passed before he continued, as if he tried to gather some strength. “They were married in secret. After Rhaegar fell on the Trident, she had a son.”

_Wait..._  

“Robert would have murdered the baby if he ever found out, and Lyanna knew it. So the last thing she did... as she bled to death on her birthing bed was give the boy to her brother... ”

_Wait... that..._

_No._

_No._

“Ned Stark... to raise as his bastard. My name... my real name...” The air struck in her throat, she felt herself suffocating, her mind suddenly too numb to do anything than to slowly shake her head, willing this all to be only a bad joke. “is Aegon Targaryen.”

Hearing the name she exhaled sharply. Her lips parted but she wasn't sure if any words would come out.

“That’s impossible,” was all she managed at the end.

“I wish it were.”

For a moment, she felt like when someone she was close to died. Like the time her shaking hands closed Irri’s eyelids, or when she stood before Ser Barristan’s lifeless body. Her brain couldn’t process it fully yet, but she knew that what she heard was somehow terribly wrong, and let anger and coldness start seeping into her bones, her ribcage; a defensive barrier around her heart to keep it from the otherwise immediate and devastating hurt.

“Who told you this?” her voice sounded like an accusation, the frost in her words frightened even her, yet she couldn’t help it.

“Bran. He saw it.”

Daenerys knew Jon like she did no one else, so she could distinguish the sorrow of his tone right away. She longed to make it disappear, to heal the wounds of his soul, but slowly the implications of the new information began to dawn on her. Her whole life...

“He saw it?”

“And Samwell confirmed it. He read about their marriage at the Citadel without even knowing what it meant.”

_No, Jon, this cannot be._

_Just cannot._

_Just..._

“A secret no one in the world knew–” sentences dripping with doubt and scepticism, they kept coming, one after another, even though deep down she already knew it was nothing but the truth, “–except your brother and your best friend. Doesn’t it seem strange to you?”

_Her whole life..._

_Her whole existence..._

“It’s true, Dany. I know it is.”

_It was all a lie._

Everything she worked for, everything she fought for, everything she built, they were all lies. She _needed_ to restore her house, it was _her duty_ to right the wrongs her family committed, the people _needed her_ to break the wheel and bring an end to their suffering...

The people needed...

_Did anyone need her at all?_

“If it were true, it would make you the last male heir of House Targaryen. You’d have a claim to the Iron Throne.”

However she tried to shield her heart behind anger, it felt like it was ripping in two. He stared at her in disbelief, like he didn't understand what she meant. And of course he wouldn’t. _How could he?_ The dead were closing on them, and like the selfless hero he was, nothing stood farther from his thoughts like the Iron Throne he wouldn’t want anyway.

Oh, she knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t want the throne. But she also knew that he was a good king, that Westeros would choose him over her in a heartbeat. _And maybe that would be for the best,_ a painful pang in her chest reminded her. A king, _male_ , good, just and strong, and spent his life in the Seven Kingdoms, unlike the foreign invader the westerosi had seen her as. He could even ride a dragon. _Rhaegal._

Rhaegar.

A brother.

A father.

And Jon, the man she loved the most in this whole world, the man she crossed the continent for, he, with his mere existence...

_Do you know what kept me standing through all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods. Not in myths and legends. In myself._

_In Daenerys Targaryen._

_I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms._

Her life, like a sandcastle in the storm collapsed, with her being powerless to do anything. And her grief was sung by the sinister sound of a horn.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments and bookmarks, as well as constructive criticism are always appreciated! Please, tell me your thoughts :)


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